nVidia's ION brings high-end graphics to netbooks

The nettop/netbook market is a growing market. It brings inexpensive, highly portable desktops and laptops to the consumer with decent power for doing most office related tasks. The problem is that even though nettop and books are very portable and have good CPUs they are severly laking in graphical power. nVidia is working on the cure for that called the Ion plaform.

The Ion is a new platform that will bring high-end graphics to the netbook market (something that is currently lacking). Ion is a single chip 9400M attached to the Atom CPU. This will allow for greatly enhanced graphics for the netbook.

Of course you have to wonder if the netbook really needs this as they are really only intended for minor office work and internet usage on the go. Not for hardcore gaming or BluRay movies (the screens are simply too small).

Intel's Atom has been a shot-in-the-arm for the mobile space because its introduction has allowed partners to bring extremely thin-and-light notebooks (ahem, netbooks) to market at low prices. These ultra-mobile laptops have caught the public's imagination but, now, we believe, users are clamouring for more performance. It seems that both AMD (with Yukon) and NVIDIA (with ION) are in agreement on this front.

NVIDIA's solution for a do-it-all netbook takes in GeForce 9400M and builds around it. We like the basic technology, but readers must be aware that the provision of extra power- much-needed in our opinion - will come at a greater financial and spatial cost. Expect these kind of netbooks to cost £350+ and ship with larger screens, optical drives, bigger batteries and, of course, heavier weights.

Building on the success of Atom, we further believe that a significant market opportunity exits for a ~1.5kg netbook that has graphical/multimedia grunt to burn, and ION seems like a good fit, on paper at least.